FreeWord and its friends and followers convened in the 900 Room at 7pm on Saturday, April 30th to see the best of what we’ve created this semester. The Duke of Diction and our Fearless Founding Father, Clint Smith ’10, returned to the fold from his adventures in South Africa and performed two new pieces. Tristin Rutherford ’13 and Camila Domonoske ’12 performed their inaugural FreeWord pieces; our beloved seniors (now alumni) Kate Kelly, Rachel Richardson, Melissa Guzman, Ashley Mincey, and Waylen Roche performed their final FreeWord pieces. We laughed – we cried – sometimes we weren’t sure which one to do.

All footage from the show can be found on our youtube channel or on individual poets’ pages here. Photos will be trickling on the site in due time. Take a break from finals, relax, and enjoy your funk face injection courtesy of FreeWord.

News has reached us all the way from Ann Arbor from the brave, the talented, the dedicated 2011 Davidson College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational team! These crazy cats have been rehearsing nonstop through the rare hours of the night (but seriously), and in a special Davidson preview performance they spat some truly dope pieces – some of which, such as Melissa’s “Guerilla Girl” (now revamped into a group piece with Kate), were true FreeWord classics from the Era of Clint; and some of which, such as Kate and James’s bluegrass-inspired “Dooley,” were brand spanking new. Here’s the recap:

Amanda, Melissa and Ashley got up there and rocked it thought. Seriously, these girls were beasts. I have NEVER seen then perform as beautifully as they did that night. Amanda made me cry, Ashley gave me chills and Melissa scared me half to death with her intensity. They were beautiful.

The Davidson team ranked 4th in this round, competing against SUNY Ioneata, UC Santa Cruz and NC A&T.

Thursday performances:
“Dooley” by James Tolleson and Kate Kelly

“Jam Session” by James Tolleson

“I Should Tell You” by Melissa Guzman

“Swim fan/Stalker” by Ashley Mincey

Again, we were flawless. Everyone gave their best performance yet. This time, the judges listened! We received a first place ranking! We’ve got video of this entire event to share with you guys. It was amazing. There was even a tie in this bout for second place so the two teams had to go head to head. After the face off, they were STILL TIED! It was like a double over-time in the NCAA tournament. So good, so much fun and some really quality poetry all around.

We ranked 1st in this round (I see you, poets!) against Carleton College, SUNY Geneseo and University of Michigan.

Friday:
“Guerilla Girl” was selected to be featured in the Group Piece Showcase! However, the team decided to surprise the judges with the unveiling of a new piece, “Miss Mary Mack.”

We’re all so proud of this year’s CUPSI representatives – we saw just how much passion, hard work, and late nights went into preparation for competition, and we knew they’d nail it at UMich. Thank you so much Kate, Amanda, James, Melissa, and Ashley for representing FreeWord so amazingly and answering with finality the age old question: “Who is Davidson College, anyway?” If they didn’t know then, they sure know now!

Join us for the interest meeting tonight at 8pm in the basement of the Multicultural House. We will be going over the spring schedule, meeting times, workshop structure, auditions, and general information about the group.

If you don’t have time to join the group but want to learn about more opportunities to perform and enjoy slam poetry in Charlotte.